VBE and GEW are calling for thousands of new teachers in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

In order to overcome the educational misery, the Education and Upbringing Association (VBE) is calling for the hiring of thousands of teachers in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. “We need around 5,000 new teachers in the next five years,” said the state chairman of the VBE, Michael Blanck, to the German Press Agency. In addition, the administrative burden at schools must be significantly reduced.

The number is significantly higher than the estimate given by the previous state government. This recently announced the hiring of 690 teachers this year. Accordingly, “only” 3,600 positions will need to be filled in the next few years.

But in order to improve the situation and reduce lost hours, additional teachers are needed, insists Blanck. The mathematics teacher wants to implement a reduction in the teaching obligation for his colleagues - the teaching profession in MV is dominated by women - at least in the long term. “In order for teachers to be able to devote more individual attention to each child, they need more time and staff support. This is the only way to achieve better results again,” says Blanck.

The Education and Science Union (GEW) takes the same line: “One thing is clear: we need more teachers,” said the GEW chairwoman in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Ulrike von Malottki. “There is not enough time to prepare and follow up lessons well.”

The GEW also wants to reduce the number of compulsory hours for teachers from the current 27 hours (27.5 in primary schools) to 25, and in an interim step at least 26. “This is a demand that the state government cannot implement the day after tomorrow,” says von Malottki. But the prospect of reducing compulsory hours should be enshrined in the coalition agreement.

Both unions equally emphasize that the number of hours should not be equated with the teachers' working hours. There's still a lot of writing and organizational stuff to do, says Blanck.

The teachers are confronted with too many tasks, says von Malottki: she lists parents' evenings, organizing conferences, school trips, creating concepts and statistics. “As a first step, teachers should urgently be relieved of the burden of bureaucracy, for example by hiring administrative staff at schools,” is their demand.

The state student council also recently gave the parties a list of demands for the state elections and, as a demand, called for more teachers for fewer lost hours.

The demand is tricky: Reducing one compulsory hour for teachers while keeping the same lessons for students costs the country 50 million euros per year. The same amount would probably be collected for supporting staff. As is well known, the coffers are tight. The State Audit Office has just called for austerity - and identified savings potential in education, of all places. “There are already more places available than are needed,” it says in the policy paper.

On the other hand, hardly anyone in the country is satisfied with the situation at schools. Education was one of the biggest issues in the election campaign. The debate was fueled once again by a scandal at the Robert Stock High School in Hagenow. After a third of the high school graduates failed the exam, a twelfth grader complained in her graduation speech that they had not had proper math lessons for two years. The angry speech went viral on YouTube - and also generated political shockwaves in Schwerin.

A committee founded by Education Minister Simone Oldenburg (Left) is still investigating the incident. During the election campaign, he provided the AfD in particular with plenty of ammunition. Their candidate for ministerial candidate, Leif-Erik Holm, discussed the failure rate at the high school at practically every election campaign event, accused the red-red government of failure and even made the promise to lead the federal state to the national top in education within ten years.

One of the main demands of the right-wing populists is to shift teaching towards more mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology (MINT). “The government simply focuses too much on political education,” complained AfD lead candidate Enrico Schult during an appearance on NDR during the election campaign.

GEW and VBE confirm major problems in the MINT subjects. At the same time, von Malottki confirms that the state government is taking countermeasures in the area of ​​mathematics by increasing the number of hours recently. She rejects the AfD's explanations as too simplistic.

While the GEW and VBE largely agree on the goals, there is disagreement about how to proceed: The GEW relies on cooperation with the new state government in order to achieve improvements. Von Malottki confirmed that the union wants to continue the existing 2030 education pact to recruit new teachers.

The VBE, on the other hand, terminated cooperation in the education pact in 2024 because, according to Blanck, it hardly brought any improvements. In the summer, the association placed a large table in front of Schwerin Castle for PR purposes with the slogan “Good school - fallen under the table”. In a similar protest action on October 27th, the association will “put the failings of education policy on the table,” Blanck announced public pressure on the new coalition.